Huawei Launches P20 Pro - But Does it Have
Enough Storage Space?

Huawei chose Paris, the City of Light, for Tuesday's massive P20 launch.

While there
are different versions of the P20 series, it is the P20 Pro which
took most of the limelight as the smartphone
features the world’s first Leica triple camera and some extremely
creative AI technology which promises to improve mobile
photography for everyone.

“We look for inspiration from artists to
continuously evolve our approach to design and innovation,” said
Richard Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Huawei Consumer Business
Group. “With a breakthrough triple camera on the Huawei P20 Pro,
an advanced dual camera on the Huawei P20 and powerful artificial
intelligence on both, today’s most vibrant consumers can capture
and share the brilliance of the world around them.”

The camera system on the P20 Pro comprises of a 40MP RGB sensor, a 20MP monochrome
sensor, an 8MP sensor with telephoto lens, and a Leica color temperature sensor for better color
reproduction. And that's just on the back.

With f/1.8, f/1.6 and f/2.4 wide apertures, the
Huawei P20 Pro also includes a
Leica 3X telephoto (VARIO-SUMMILUX-H 1:1.6-2.4/27-80ASPH) lens for
long-range photography of up to 5X Hybrid Zoom.

The image sensor can even capture low
light photos with up to ISO 102,400, though how usable an image
taken at that ISO would be remains to be seen as even on a camera
like the Canon 1D X you would never go that high.

The smartphone is also bundled with some
highly innovative software. With the Kirin 970 processor, the P20
Pro automatically identifies more
than 500 scenarios in 19 categories, selecting camera settings to
deliver what Huawei says are “more professional-looking images”.

Huawei's new AIS (AI Image Stabilization) looks
very impressive and manages to steady handheld
night shots to make long exposure images of up to six seconds without a tripod. Longer exposures are also possible but then a tripod
would be needed.

The P20 Pro also features
4D predictive focus and AI-Assisted Composition, more useful
software which which many will love.

The 6.1-inch P20 Pro runs EMUI 8.1 based on Android 8.1,
and has 6GB of RAM with 128 GB of internal memory.

But....

This all sounds amazing right? Yes it does, until you
consider that if you want to make full use of the impressive camera
capabilities built into the P20 Pro smartphone, then 128GB of internal
memory is not all that much. This is especially true when you
calculate how much space any existing data, internal and external,
you will transfer from
your old phone will take up. And, as there is no micro sd slot for
you to expand the storage capacity then you could fill that
128GB much quicker than you may think. In fact for some, this may
even be a deal breaker. Yes it's great if the 40MP camera is
amazing and there's plenty of fancy software to make your
photography look even better. And to have a battery last for so
long and charge so quickly is terrific. But if you have filled
your internal memory half way through the day but still want to
take shots, what are you going to do?!

As the P20 Pro is aimed at photography
enthusiasts it is very disappointing that it does not address one
of the biggest problems photographers face - storage.
A micro sd slot would have solved that issue.

Editor's note: We'll
update this page with test images and more once we are able to
test the P20 Pro properly, which should be very soon.